Northampton Community College locks down email addresses after records ruling

Because data was published in a student directory, state's Right-to-Know Law required public release.

June 27, 2013|By Peter Hall, Of The Morning Call

Northampton Community College will take steps to keep its students' email addresses private after an open records decision required administrators to provide the information to a Bucks County activist.

The idea their email addresses could be released for commercial or political purposes outraged some students, who wrote to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records in an effort to influence its decision, said Helene Whitaker, the school's vice president for administrative affairs.

"I'm disappointed … that personal contact information initially and solely used by an institution of learning is now being made available to anyone who asks for it," one student, whose name the college would not release, said in an email.

But the office — charged with passing judgment in disputes over access to public agencies' information — ruled in favor of activist Simon Campbell and against the college. The office has repeatedly ruled that email addresses issued by public agencies are public information.

The office determined that an exception for colleges and universities under a federal student privacy act does not apply, because the college already had published the email addresses in a student directory.

Whitaker said this week the January ruling has prompted the college to remove student email addresses from its directory. The school also is removing them from a list given students of personal information that could be made public unless the student opts to keep it private.

Whitaker finds the state's stance troubling, saying for instance that removing students' email addresses from the school directory may hamper their ability to communicate with one another.

She also said it would force an end to niceties including congratulatory emails to graduates from elected officials. But she said the policy change is designed to prevent what she and others see as an unintended consequence of the state's Right-to-Know Law.

Whitaker said the college has long made a commitment to students that it would not allow school email addresses to be used for frivolous purposes. That was an effort to encourage students to check their email for important notices from the college.

But most of the right-to-know requests for student information that the college receives are commercial in nature, Whitaker said, and she has a problem with that.

"The purpose is open access to public records to ensure open and honest government," Whitaker said. "I don't think the law was meant to help marketers build a free database or market their wares directly to students or to help politicians or political gadflies market their views to students."

Campbell, who operates a political action committee called Pennsylvanians for Union Reform, said Whitaker is overlooking one of the law's fundamental provisions: People requesting information do not need to explain why they want it.

"I didn't like how Northampton was trying to turn the premise around, as if the mere act of requesting records is somehow bad," he said.

Campbell says he made identical requests for students and faculty email addresses to each community college and state university in Pennsylvania. About half of the community colleges and all the state schools complied.

He appealed some of the denials, and won against Northampton Community College and the Community College of Philadelphia.

The Office of Open Records found that although email addresses issued by public colleges and universities to students and faculty are public under state law, they can be protected under the federal Family Education Records Privacy Act.

The act prohibits the release of any student information except for educational purposes, and then only when parents and students have been notified in advance that the information may be released. Students may opt out of such releases by informing school administrators. Schools often use the act's exception to publish student directories.

Luzerne County Community College denied Campbell's request, and the state office upheld that decision because the school has chosen not to publish a directory. In that situation, the Right-to-Know Law could not overcome the federal privacy law's ban on releasing student data.

At Northampton and Philadelphia community colleges, students had been notified according to the privacy act and directories had been published, so the state ruled in Campbell's favor.

Unlike Northampton, Philadelphia agreed not to appeal the state's decision in Campbell's favor when he agreed to send students only four emails to the addresses he obtained.

Lehigh Carbon Community College, which also denied Campbell's request, publishes a directory and notifies students according to the privacy act, but Campbell did not appeal the college's decision. He said he simply missed the deadline amid responses to dozens of records requests.